The March of Time

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When Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan did not arrive within visual range of Howland Island on the morning of 2 July 1937, their last airborne radio messages to the U S Coast Guard Cutter Itasca left few clues to their location. Even days after the Lockheed Electra’s fuel would have been depleted, wireless stations continued to hear what they thought were Earhart’s voice radio transmissions on her designated radio frequencies. Guidance in a 5 July 1937 message from the U. S. Coast Guard headquarters in San Francisco received by the USCGC Itasca and USS Colorado, stated "Radio technicians familiar with radio equipment on plane who say that the radio can't function now, 3 days after the disappearance, unless the plane is on land and able to run the starboard engine.” [1]Additionally, some radio components were mounted low in the aircraft and would have been submerged if the plane had ditched in the sea. Thus, the verification of the “post loss” radio signals’ genuineness was a critical factor in determining whether Earhart may have, in fact, been on land. Hoaxes, cranks, and commercial radio docu-dramas had to be identified and discounted as being legitimate Earhart transmissions.

Early History of Radio

Table model radios similar to this one cost about $40, or half a months pay at the time. (Courtesy, Radio Era Archive. Used by permission.)

Early radio in the United States from the 1920’s into the World War II period is often referred to as the “Golden Age of Radio”. The media was rapidly evolving, as was its technology. The number of “radio homes” had grown from 12 million in 1930 to 22 million by 1935, in spite of the depression. The cost of a table model radio had decreased to around $40, (still a half month’s pay for many Americans). By 1935, even 2.5 million automobiles were equipped with radios. At the start of World War II, 87% of homes in the U.S. had radios. [2] The first half of the 1930’s decade saw the greatest idea development in the history of radio programming. Electrical recording was developed by the mid Twenties, but the concepts of “on scene news reports”, “remote broadcasts” and regular newscasts were in their infancy. “Breaking news” reports were not easily done with early state of the art radio technology. Radio genres evolved rapidly during this period and provided a sense of “being there”. These included:

• Comedy variety programs built around a "featured" comedian;
• Straight variety--of the vaudeville type;
• Hillbilly variety-of the National Barn Dance type;
• Human interest programs of the "interview and advice" type;
• Amateur contest variety shows popularized by Major Bowes;
• Public affairs forum programs of the Town Meeting or round-table types;
• 5-time-a-week, 15-minute network news programs;
• Dramatized news-of the March of Time type;
• Women's daytime serial dramas; and
• Late afternoon "kid" adventure "thriller" dramas in serial form.[3]

The March of Time Radio Show

(©2001 James Steele, All Rights Reserved)

The innovative Time magazine management of the Twenty’s began experimenting with ten minute radio news broadcasts in 1928 . News stories, drawn from the pages of Time magazine, were read in what were termed “NewsCasts”. The following year “NewsCasts” were augmented with electrical transcriptions of current news segments enacted by professional actors with sound effects and termed “NewsActing”. These fifteen minute programs were offered free to stations who in turn would agree to advertise Time magazine. Henry Luce became convinced that this news concept could be expanded and the March of Time began on CBS on 6 March 1931. With a title and theme music derived from the Harold Arlen song, “The March of Time” a solid listener following developed for the new program. During the turbulent international times of the mid Thirties, Tom Carskadon wrote in Tower Radio in January, 1935: “On the radio, only one program has the courage, the bite and the drive to plunge into this actuality and come forth with a panorama of the present. It’s the March of Time. Listeners say it is the most vivid, the most real, the most significant program on the air. Radio experts call it the finest piece of out-and-out radio production on the air today. In addition to its great audience popularity, it is a “showman’s show” if there ever was one.” [4] Raymond Fielding writes in The March of Time, 1931-1951 that "great care was taken to secure transcripts of authentic statements and comments of the celebrities who were impersonated on the program. In those cases in which these could not be obtained, writers were given the dramatic license to contrive and re-create such dialogue as seemed appropriate to the characters and situation." A thousand man-hours were required to produce each show--33 hours for each minute of air time. This included news research, editing, clerical work, music rehearsal, cast rehearsal, script writing and editing and other tasks. The financial burden was immense for Time magazine and an attempt to discontinue the program in 1932 was abandoned when listener response was so overwhelming that Time management relented and the program was continued through the Thirties, and in a different format into the early Forties.[5]

Impact on the Search for Earhart

March of Time Radio Script for 8 July 1937 Broadcast on CBS Radio(Courtesy: Time, Inc.)

On 8 July 1937, less than a week after Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10 was lost, the radio operator of an Inter-Island Airways plane (now Hawaiian Airlines) heard a radio transmission he thought was from Amelia Earhart sending an SOS to ships at sea. After reporting this to authorities, it was passed to searchers. Later it was learned he actually heard a shortwave relay of the March of Time dramatization of the Earhart disappearance being sent to Hawaiian radio stations. [6]

The Captain of the USS Colorado, Wilhelm L. Friedell, wrote the following in his report to the Commandant , Fourteenth Naval District: “During the previous twenty-four hours two reports of the plane had been received. A report was received from Melbourne, Australia “Plane between Howland and Samoa Group, ten hours West.” No further information was given nor was the report verified. The other report was received at 1800 stating that a reputable citizen of Hilo at 1515 had heard Amelia Earhart call the ITASCA and the ITASCA answer. The ITASCA was immediately asked for verification and stated that they had no word. What then did it mean, was a joke intended, a fraud perpetrated or a mistake made? The mystery was solved shortly by the report that the listener had accidentally tuned in on the March of Time broadcast and believed the reproduction and acting to be real.” [7] In 1982, Frederick J. Hooven, wrote a comprehensive report on the Earhart disappearance. Hooven was the innovator of the Automatic Direction Finder (ADF) for aircraft and had installed his system on the Earhart aircraft. It was later removed by Earhart to save weight. Hooven wrote in his report about the March of Time broadcast: “There were excited reports from many places when the March of Time reenacted an imagined rescue on the broadcast radio.” [8]

Scripts of the 8 July 1937 and 15 July 1937 March of Time

Original Electrical Transcriptions (ET) of most March of Time productions are extremely rare, and finding and audio copy of either the 8 July 1937, or the second program on 15 July 1937 is difficult. Electrical Transcriptions were 16” aluminum based discs, which were later scrapped for their aluminum content during World War II. They were replaced by glass based ET’s, an extremely fragile product that did not survive well. TIGHAR researches have located and obtained a sound recording of the 8 July 1937 March of Time program, and Time, Inc. has furnished TIGHAR with microfilm prints of both the 8 July, and 15 July scripts for these productions.

Bibliography

Brown, R. J. (2004). Manipulating the Ether: The Power of Broadcast Radio in Thirties America. McFarland.